


The Wide Ocean

by orphan_account



Series: We Mechanical Men [3]
Category: Jonas Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Consent Issues, F/M, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-24
Updated: 2012-10-24
Packaged: 2017-11-16 23:03:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick and Joe's relationship has its high and low points.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wide Ocean

Summer arrived, and with the weather warmer, Nick became restive, fidgety. He decided that he needed something to do and joined the town’s soccer league. He’d played before his diagnosis; played well, winning trophies, but the upheaval in his life prompted him to leave his team. Now he felt ready to do it again.

He was excited about taking up soccer and it showed. Coming home from his first training session, he burst through the front door and bounded across the room to hug Joe, who’d been waiting for his arrival home. Joe put down his novel and lifted Nick off his feet, grinning. Nick was flushed and rumpled, his hair hectic, and he smelt of sweat, grass and dirt. Inhaling, Joe felt warm, as if without his knowledge his insides had been frozen and were only now thawing.

“Joe! I mean, Joe,” said Nick, assuming a serious face. “I have something to tell you.”

Obligingly, Joe answered in kind. “What is it, Nick?”

“I am going to teach you something. Something special, something important. I am going to teach you – how to play the greatest game in the world.”

They went to the local park and Joe watched as Nick dribbled a ball back and forth. 

“There are ten outfielders and one goalkeeper on the pitch per team. Substitutes wait on the bench. Games are ninety minutes each, split into two halves with a fifteen minute break in between.” He glanced at Joe a few times as he spoke. 

Joe tried to look thoughtful and nodded at what seemed like appropriate times. He didn’t tell Nick that he already knew the rules, or that he could easily learn how to play by himself.

“The ball is always in play except for when an offence occurs, if the referee stops play, or when it crosses a goal or touch line. To score a goal, the ball must cross into a goal area with its entire circumference. There are a few more things you need to know, but let’s get onto basic skills first. Dribbling involves your foot’s sole, heel, inside and outside. Try not to get in the habit of staring down, either; in a real game you’ll have to keep scanning the field. Here, you have a go.”

He kicked the ball to Joe, who watched impassively as it went sailing past. Birds wheeled and called out overhead. Joe looked at Nick blankly. Nick crossed his arms. Joe sighed and trotted after the ball.

Dribbling was – unexpectedly difficult. It was only physics, and Joe was familiar with quantum string theory, but somehow the ball kept escaping his feet. It took an unreasonable amount of time for Joe to return to Nick.

As he approached, he saw Nick watching him with a hand raised to shield his eyes from the sun. 

“ … and once you get the hang of that, we can try juggling the ball, which is also good practice for ball control and trapping,” he said, sounding doubtful.

More soccer? That was, that was great. Joe made sure to put on an enthusiastic face. He didn’t want to disappoint Nick.

Nick winced. “Yeah, okay, let’s head home now.”

Soccer made Nick happy, which was good, but it also meant that Nick had less time for Joe. He went from spending almost every hour of the day with Nick to having vast swathes of time on his own with nothing to occupy himself. He slowly worked his way through Nick’s bookshelf, which had an inordinate number of speculative books on extra-terrestrial life forms, and practiced playing the guitar. He also baked a few times. Denise taught him how to knit.

“That’s it, you’re getting it! Oh, but you dropped a stitch here. And here, and here. Um. Keep trying, sweetie.” She patted his back encouragingly. “You might want to practice a bit more before trying something harder than a scarf.”

He found ways to keep busy. Mostly, though, he watched the clock and counted down the minutes until Nick’s homecoming.

Eventually he found out where Nick’s spending so much of his time. Nick was distracted when they were hanging out, kept checking his phone.

The fourth time he put it down and slumped, Joe asked, “What is it? You’re all antsy. Sorry if my company is boring you.”

Nick thumped him. “Shut up, Joe.”

“So what’s your deal then?”

“I’m waiting for a text message.” A smile threatened to break across his face. He hesitated before adding, “There’s this girl. Her name’s Miley. She’s on the girls’ soccer team.” He sounded shy, reticent. And happy. He’d never shown anyone else this level of attention before.

“Do you like her?” said Joe abruptly. His voice sounded flat, without the inflection he usually took care put in it.

“She’s all right, I suppose.” Nick looked down at his book studiously. Joe waited for him to continue but he didn’t. The minutes stretched.

Joe stood and walked to the kitchen without a word. He cut and prepared sandwiches, adding lettuce, tomato, and a few slices of the double-smoked ham in the fridge. He removed the crusts and arranged them on a plate, and thought, Nick’s never deliberately lied to my face before. Today he had. The dilated pupils, the slightly elevated heart rate – they were physiological signs that he did, indeed, like her very much.

 

“Happy birthday, Mister President,” said Joe into Nick’s ear, voice dark and sweet. Intimate.

“Ugh, I told you that in confidence; are you going to tease me about it forever?” Nick squirmed, flustered, but didn’t try very hard to escape Joe’s grasp.

Joe snuggled in closer and dug his chin into Nick’s shoulder. “I’m not teasing! I’m _encouraging_ you like the awesome, supportive brother I am.” He dug his fingers into the space beneath Nick’s ribs and said over his laughter, “I have something for you. Upstairs. I’ll give to you later.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay,” breathed Nick.

It was a good day. Early in the morning, Kevin called on Skype and chatted with everyone for an hour. He spent at least ten minutes telling a long-winded, convoluted story about a duck and his philosophy professor, and another ten minutes going, _You’re practically a man, now, Nick; you’re a little man, I can hardly recognise you!_ That night, the family went out to a nice restaurant for dinner and they all sang happy birthday after a five course meal, despite how stuffed they felt.

Joe sat on the bed, leaning back against the headboard, and waited for Nick to come out of the bathroom. After a few minutes, Nick emerged with his teeth freshly-brushed. His eyes were smiling as he advanced towards Joe, losing his jeans along the way. Reaching the edge of the bed, he crawled the rest of the way.

Joe stopped Nick when he was almost on him. “Happy birthday,” he said again, pulling his present out from the gap behind him. “Try it on.”

Wordlessly, Nick took the sweater Joe had worked on for the last month. He’d had some help from Denise, but wanted to do the bulk of it himself. For a while he wasn’t sure if he’d finish it on time but he just managed. He ran out of orange yarn three-quarters of the way through and used moss green for the remainder. He thought the end product was acceptable. It was – fresh, citrus-y.

He admired Nick in the sweater. “It looks good. The left sleeve is a little short but probably no one will notice. And it’s warm, too, so you can wear it often in the cold weather.”

Nick gave a shaky smile before inhaling deeply and letting it out. “Thanks, man, this must have taken you so long. It’s really, it’s really something.”

“I also baked you a cake. I’ve been practicing; it’s sugar-free but I’m pretty sure it’ll taste all right.”

They kissed for a while on the bed, Nick flat on his back and Joe on his side, propping himself up on an elbow. The sweater ended up on the floor. He ran a hand down Nick’s side and under his remaining shirt, brushing his fingertips against the dimples on the small of Nick’s back. He helped Nick undress fully and was assisted in removing his own clothes.

Joe lay so that his torso was cradled between Nick’s thighs and rested his head on Nick’s stomach, listening to its faint gurgles. Nick carded a hand through Joe’s hair. His nostrils flared: cotton, sweat, young male. Nick’s scent was changing, becoming stronger, but Joe put the thought aside and focus on swallowing Nick down.

Not long after, he felt Nick fill his mouth, spilling with a gentle sigh. Salt and musk and a faint, underlying sweetness. He kept it in his mouth for a moment, just tasting, before spitting delicately into his hand.

He held Nick, and felt that strange, melting warmth in his stomach again. He ran a self-diagnostic test that revealed all systems were functioning normally. Did all humans feel this when they were with someone they loved? The result of neurons lighting up and synapses firing, sending a message of animal comfort to the brain. He knew what love was, intellectually; there were millions of books and films and sonnets on the subject. What he did not know was if he was capable of experiencing it. He regarded the solid weight leaning into him for long, quiet minutes.

But after that day things between them returned to the way they were earlier – Nick was busy, preoccupied, and Joe found himself left to his own devices more and more often. He found ways to pass time and waited, because he knew he had to be ready for when Nick would next need him.

Miley visited the house. She had a long, tawny mane of hair that caught the sunlight, warmed with it. Joe was sprawled on the carpet, putting together a puzzle he’d found in the cupboard, when she and Nick tumbled through the front door. 

“ – I said, Noooo, daddy, oh _no_ , but of course he went and did it _anyway_ , and you can guess how well that turned out. Parents! What are we supposed to do with them – oh! Hi!” She stopped, grinning, and looked back and forth between Nick and Joe. “Is this … ?”

“Hey, uh, yeah. Joe, this is Miley. Miley, Joe.”

Joe put down the puzzle pieces and stood. He shook her hand. “Hi, Miley, nice to meet you. I didn’t realise you were coming over.” He shot a quizzical look at Nick, who only shrugged.

“It was a last minute thing, you know. So, Joe, you’re an android, right?” she inquired in a prosaic tone.

As it turned out, she knew a surprising amount about AIs and spent several minutes quizzing Joe on his specifications. Nick leaned against the wall and tipped his head back, listening.

“I’m considering studying computer science in college. It would be cool to be an AI developer. That, or a singer.” She waved a negligent hand.

Nick and Miley helped Joe finish the puzzle before they started on video games, and Joe got to know the person who’d so occupied Nick’s thoughts and time the past months. She was gregarious, had eclectic taste in music, liked Stevie Wonder and Radiohead – Nick made a face like he was being hit over the head with something – and extremely good at _Halo._ She won by a large margin, but accepted the victory with grace, which raised her in Joe’s estimation.

When she’d left, Joe said, “That was Miley.”

“Yep.” Nick picked at a loose thread on his clothes.

Joe turned off the game console and left the TV on. “I like her.”

They watched the news until Denise came home. Joe let himself absorb the information without concentrating; he could review it later. Instead, he watched Nick and thought about how the things Kevin said were true, despite the eye-rolling they engendered from Nick: Nick was growing up. He had always been precocious, fiercely independent, and with every day he was maturing. Soon, he wouldn’t need anyone, anything. Just himself.

His eyes were focused on the screen, his face intent, a line of concentration between his brows. He was so serious.

“Want to go upstairs? I want to see your etchings.”

Nick choked on a laugh. “Sure, Joe. Um – sure.”

All the way up to Nick’s room, Joe felt the weight of Nick’s gaze on the back of his neck. He went and sat down, let Nick close the door and come to him. Tilting his chin up, he watched Nick’s throat work.

“Are you all right?”

A nod.

“Good.” He pulled Nick into his lap, kissing him as he did so because he knew Nick liked that, and he would always do what he could to make Nick happy. Nick was eager, wrapping his arms around Joe’s shoulders and pushing back like he wanted to dive right into him.

Joe helped him out of his clothes and soon he was hovering over Joe again, knees planted just outside of Joe’s thighs. The hair on Nick’s body was less downy than it had been, more wiry now. Nick’s underwear was caught around one leg but he didn’t seem to care, so Joe ignored it too. The main thing was that Nick was smiling, looking dazed and happy and focused entirely on Joe.

In the films and television shows Joe had seen, people generally progressed from kissing straight to intercourse. He thought about this and contrasted it to his own experiences with Nick. He wondered, Did many humans have sexual relations with androids? Probably. There were movies out there about people who fell in love with androids and had their feelings reciprocated. Those androids were always a little off, subtly wrong, more of a romanticised version of an android than anything true to life. Joe had tried to watch one of those movies with Nick, but ended up turning it off when Nick had started to look ill.

Nick squirmed and pressed himself eagerly against Joe, anywhere he could reach, making hungry little noises. He ground down against Joe, thighs shaking. He was bigger than he used to be, had grown before Joe’s eyes. What would Joe be doing if it weren’t for Nick? Cleaning some stranger’s house, working security for a second-rate businessman? He hadn’t been built for imagination, but he did not think anyone in his position could imagine themself anywhere else.

Just the feel of Joe’s hands of Nick – between his shoulder blades, on the small of his back, the cut of his hip – was enough to draw strong reactions from him. Joe thought clinically that Nick’s future partners would be uncommonly lucky to have someone so responsive; it was as if he existed for this. 

Nick groaned low, the sound coming from his chest, and hid his face in Joe’s shoulder so Joe could only see the sweat beading on his temples. Joe threaded his fingers through Nick’s hair and pulled his head back to see his expression. His mouth was slack, pupils dilated.

“I want you to jerk yourself off.” Joe said the words very, very quietly.

Nick closed his eyes and nodded. His eyes slid shut. Joe kept his hand in Nick’s hair.

A low, heart-felt sound escaped Nick when he put his hand on himself. The head of his dick was flushed dark, shining and wet, peeking out from his fist. Joe watched as he jerked himself slowly. On the down stroke, Nick’s hips jolted, straining forward, desperate and wanting. Nick chewed the inside of his lip.

“Okay, okay, that’s good. Can you let go now? I need to see you, just for a minute.”

He tensed, but removed his hands. His dick jutted, straining for Joe; it was reddening, the veins standing out more. Joe ran a finger down big vein on the underside of it and laughed a little as it flexed. A fat, clear drop of pre-come slid down the shaft, and once it hit the base, he leaned forward to nuzzle Nick’s mouth.

“Perfect. You’re perfect,” said Joe, lips buzzing, and made Nick wrap his hand around himself again, just hold himself for a while.

“C-come on, Joe, stop messing around.”

“Hold on, just one thing first.” Joe placed his hand so that it overlapped with Nick’s. He whispered, “Now let’s do it together.”

Nick’s fingers dug into Joe’s upper arm, his palm pressed sweaty against Joe’s bare skin, as they stroked Nick off. He kept shifting restlessly, distractingly, but Joe didn’t let their hands stop. Nick tried to speed up but Joe kept the pace sweet and relentless, not too fast and not too slow, as Nick gradually lost it, his breaths coming loud and ragged. He made helpless, hurt-sounding grunts when he spilt, belly quivering with each hard surge.

After, Nick was sated, and they lay in a pile of limbs for seventeen peaceful minutes. Then Nick’s message tone blared out and he was rolling off the bed, grabbing his mobile. He grinned as he read the text and sent one back before jogging down the hallway to the bathroom.

“Who is it?” Joe called out, though he knew the answer.

“Miley. Her dad just came home with tickets to the premiere of the new Bond movie.”

Three hours of doing nothing much later, Joe shut himself down for the night. His eyes opened in the early hours of the morning, and with his thermal imaging he saw the Nick-shaped lump beneath the bed covers. He didn’t get up; he had plenty of time.

Watching Nick was an activity that could occupy him for hours on end. He gazed at the strong, straight line of his brother’s nose, his narrow jaw; he considered the slopes of his cheekbones. He drew from his memory bank the image of Nick’s flushed face, colour high in his cheeks as he gripped Joe tightly.

He listened to Nick’s soft, snuffling breaths and waited in the darkness.

 

“What happened?” The distance between Joe and Nick was eaten up in a few strides.

Nick had his back against the front door, hands pressed flat against the wood. He shook minutely. Joe held his face in his hands and turned it this way and that, as if by doing so he could divine what was so terribly wrong it made Nick look utterly blank, shock-y. His skin was clammy to the touch.

“She has a boyfriend, an older guy. He thought I was – he warned me off her.” He curled his lip as colour began creeping up his neck. A muscle jumped in his clenched jaw. Joe didn’t have to ask who he was talking about.

“Did he need to warn you off her? You spend a lot of time together.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Nick tightly.

“Nothing. It was just an observation. What did he do?”

Nick folded his arms over his chest, rubbing himself. A defensive posture. “He got some of his friends and they, you know, pushed me around a little.” He sounded angry.

“Ah.” Joe sucked in a breath. “You should sit down.”

He guided Nick to an armchair and gave him a glass of water. Nick gulped it down thirstily, and then two more refills. Once his colour was better, Joe headed for the front door. The door was open when Nick’s voice stopped him.

“Where are you going?” His voice was small, too tentative by far.

Joe conjured up the hazy image of an overgrown thug, the one who’d done this to Nick. Who thought he could push Nick around without repercussions. Joe thought of all the damage he could inflict before someone saw him and pulled him off. “Out.”

Nick flung himself forward and out of the chair, wrapping his arms around Joe as if he could really stop him if Joe didn’t want to. “No, Joe, _don’t!_ You can’t do that, they’ll take you away from me! Look, I’m fine, I’m not even hurt. I’ll – I’ll tell someone, I promise I’ll sort this out.”

He stopped moving toward the door and focused on Nick clinging to him, his face a scant inch away. Brushing a lock of hair out of Nick’s face, he studied his expression. He said, “You’re so different now. I don’t understand you anymore.” And, “I wish you’d tell me what’s changed.”

Nick let him go and took a step back, watching Joe with that considering, dark-eyed gaze. That was Nick, always thinking.

“You’re so – you make me want things,” he said in a low voice. His face had that intent, habitual frown that brought out one specific reaction from Joe: to erase it as quickly as possible. If Nick continued this habit of brooding he would begin to develop wrinkles in his twenties. 

“Things I can’t have. Things that aren’t – ” Nick took a breath. “I want too much, I know.”

The thought of him being unhappy was ... disconcerting, Joe thought was an appropriate word. _Unacceptable._ “What do you want?” he asked.

Nick said nothing.

“What do you want?” he repeated. “Tell me. I’ll do it, I’ll give it to you.”

The clock ticked quietly in the silence. Nick kept staring at him, looking pained. Joe was used to Nick’s changeable expressions by now, knew what he looked like when he was experiencing emotional anguish. Though Joe was almost certain Nick was not physically hurt, he ran a quick thermal scan just to be sure. It proved his hypothesis correct, that whatever was bothering Nick was in his own head. 

Nick said nothing.

“Will you a least tell me if you’re still going to hang out with Miley?”

“I don’t know.” Nick shrugged and looked away.

Later, when Joe sat in a chair by a window on the upper floor, he saw Nick bent over in the back yard, opening two small, white boxes. Nick had been out for half an hour, his explanation being that he had “errands to run”. Leaning forward so that his forehead pressed against the cool glass, Joe watched as Nick carefully lifted plain, porcelain plates out of their foam nests and systematically smashed them, one after another.

**Author's Note:**

> DR SNAUT: We seek contact and will never achieve it.  
> – _Solaris,_ 1972


End file.
